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August 04, 2011

We're saddened to pass on news of the passing of Jonathan B. Tucker, who was found dead at his Washington, D.C. home on July 31, a few days shy of his 57th birthday.

Tucker, a native of Boston, was an expert in chemical biological weapons, and his work straddled the worlds of science and policy. He spent 15 years at the Monterey Institute’s James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. According to an obituary in the Washington Post, he was awaiting confirmation to a new position at the Department of Homeland Security at the time of his death.

January 07, 2011

After many months of preparation (and 150 years of famously impactful work) MIT's sesquicentennial is upon us: today marks the first of 150 days of celebration. The celebration begins this afternoon at the MIT Museum with a special preview of the 150 Exhibition, a collection of 150 objects chosen through the collective wisdom of the MIT community. These 150 objects evoke the Institute's distinctive culture, history, and accomplishments. Included too is a list of MIT Press' most influential publications. Thirty influential works from MIT Press' list of 9,000 titles highlight the many seminal works in science, technology, and other disciplines published since 1926.

January 05, 2011

We're deeply saddened to have to announce the death of our author William Freudenburg, who died on December 28 at his home in Santa Barbara after a long battle with cancer. He was 59.

Especially painful is the fact that only months ago we published Bill's first book with us: Blowout in the Gulf: The BP Oil Spill Disaster and the Future of Energy in America. In the aftermath of the explosion of the BP well, Freudenburg and coauthor Robert Gramling - both well-known energy experts - quickly wrote up their diagnosis of the regulatory failures that led, almost inevitably, to the disaster, and added their prescription for a better and saner U.S. energy policy. We published the book quickly - and proudly. And we're deeply sorry that we won't get the opportunity to do more with Bill.

A public memorial service will be held January 22 at the University of California Santa Barbara, where Bill had taught since 2002. A public lecture that he gave about the oil spill about a month before his death is here. Much more about Bill - including a bio, stories, and pictures - is at a website set up by his family in his memory.

September 13, 2010

Next year marks the 150th anniversary of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and to prepare, we at the MIT Press are thinking about what it means to have an influence. As part of the anniversary celebration, the MIT Museum is planning the “MIT 150 Exhibition” which will feature 150 “evocative objects” that represent major elements or moments that have either significantly shaped MIT’s history or that invoke aspects of MIT’s identity. The exhibit will feature 25 of our most influential titles—including books and journals— that have shaped their respective disciplines over time.

The MIT Museum has reached out to include a wide range of voices from the MIT community in putting together the exhibit. To this end, Deborah Douglas, MIT Museum Science and Technology Curator, met with a panel of MITP staff members last week for a lunchtime discussion to tackle the question of what makes a book or journal influential—is it simply a matter of sales and citations, or is influence based on less measurable things?

Representatives from the various departments at the Press came armed with extensive lists of possible titles, and a conversation ensued regarding the criteria for book selection. Discussion was rich and varied from book to book and journal to journal. Acquisitions editors argued for the major players in their fields, and the titles that garnered the most nominations not only redefined, but occasionally created a new discipline. One such innovative book that had many advocates was Michael Gazzaniga’s classic reference, The Cognitive Neurosciences, which was instrumental in the development of this growing field. Some in our Production department talked about particular books’ importance and influence as objects, achievements for their own novel or beautiful design. Our Marketing department pulled out a list of the bestsellers over the course of MIT Press history, but many argued that a highly successful title wasn’t necessarily a highly influential title. As a group, we zeroed in on those titles that played the largest a role in shaping intellectual discourse throughout the years.

The discussion continues, as well as our collaboration with the MIT Museum in anticipation of the Institute’s big year. Visit the MIT 150 Exhibition, set to open on January 7, 2011, to see which titles make the cut!

And as its
cruises headlong into its sixth year, the PressLog is getting more mature by
the day, ready to handle whatever hot topics and simmering debates arise in our
little intellectual universe. As always, thank you all so much for reading,
tweeting, and following- even the five-year-olds
among us appreciate it.

February 03, 2010

Choice Magazine reviews and recommends scholarly books and media for academic libraries. Each year, Choice publishes a list of “Outstanding Academic Titles”. This prestigious list reflects the best titles reviewed by Choice in the preceding year and brings with it the recognition of the academic library community. The 2009 list, which has just been announced, includes 612 print and 40 electronic titles. The following MIT Press titles have been recognized as Outstanding Academic Titles for 2009:

January 18, 2010

The start of a new decade brings us a milestone here at MIT Press: the nine-thousandth book we have published. Book #9,000 is Grammar As Scienceby Richard K. Larson. This introductory linguistics textbook offers a novel approach to the study of syntax: it presents core topics of syntax as exercises in scientific theorizing and scientific thought. The book (and accompanying software) emerged from a joint project, funded by the National Science Foundation, between the Linguistics and Computer Science department at SUNY Stony Brook. The goal of the project, and ultimately the book, is to help students develop scientific reasoning skills by analyzing language data.

Larson's innovative approach to teaching linguistics remind us of the many new contributions to pedagogy made by MIT Press titles throughout our history.

January 15, 2010

We're pleased to announce that Chris Payne’s Asylum has won the 2010 Ken Book Award given by the National Alliance on Mental Illness of NYC-Metro (NAMI-NYC Metro). NAMI-NYC Metro is a grassroots organization that provides support, education, and advocacy for families and individuals of all ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds who live with mental illness. NAMI-NYC Metro works collaboratively with state and national affiliates to educate the public, advocate for legislation, reduce stigma, and improve the mental health system.

November 10, 2009

Society for Neuroscience is one of my favorite meetings to attend as an exhibitor. The folks at this meeting - all 30,000+ of them - spend plenty of time on the exhibits floor and especially along publisher's row. Our reputation seems to proceed us - our strong history in this field garners us a lot of attention. I love getting to interact with our customers who seem as equally passionate about buying our books as I am about selling them. It was a thrill to attend this conference for the fourth time and be greeted by familiar faces returning to our booth to purchase new titles and beloved favorites for their friends or students.

This is the largest conference we attend and one of the longest; my co-workers and I spent a week in Chicago where this year's Society for Neuroscience meeting was held. Two days of travel, one day to set-up, four days of selling, and one day off in-between. The days in the convention center start for us at 8:30 am when we arrive early to set-up our computers and end at 5:30 when we finally close up shop and usher the last straggling customers out of the booth. This year things were so busy that we even brought packed lunches to eat between sales. And we celebrated successful work days with hot pastrami, deep-dish pizza, or one of the famous Illinois "Horseshoe" sandwiches.

October 23, 2009

In conjunction with the clean energy address that President Obama is delivering at MIT today, MIT Press is releasing essays from the soon to be published fall special issue of Innovations journal on energy and climate solution. The pre-released essays are authored by White House Science Adviser John Holdren, 2005 Nobel Laureate in Economics Thomas Schelling, and the Director of MIT’s Washington office, William Bonvillian.

In his introducing to the special issue, Holdren states that the forthcoming publication is “as thorough a survey of energy and climate solutions as has yet been compiled.” Of the climate challenge, he writes:

“Without energy, there is no economy. Without climate, there is no environment.Without economy and environment, there is no material well-being, no civil society,no personal or national security. The overriding problem associated with theserealities, of course, is that the world has long been getting most of the energy itseconomies need from fossil fuels whose emissions are imperiling the climate thatits environment needs.”

“Among the ideas that I do not believe will get serious attention in Copenhagen is one I see as critical to addressing the climate challenge: creating a new institutional structure to coordinate assistance from advanced industrialized countries to developing countries with the objective of transforming the way that people in the developing world produce and utilize energy.”

Bonvillian’s essay, co-authored with GeorgetownUniversity’s Charles Weiss, summarizes and advances the core arguments presented in the authors’ MIT Press book title Structuring an Energy Technology Revolution. Bonvillian and Weiss argue that the transformation of the energy technology infrastructure represents an unprecedented challenge for policy-makers as well as for technological innovators:

“Where complex technology sectors like energy are involved, we need to have Congress legislate standard packages of incentives and support across common technology launch areas, so that some technology neutrality is preserved and the optimal emerging technology has a chance to prevail.”

The Director of the MIT Press, Ellen Faran, states that “The Innovations special issue reflects the commitment of MIT and the MIT Press to promote innovative solutions to global issues and to encourage the widest dissemination of its scholarship.”

Sample articles from the issue follow below. Members of the media wishing to see an advance copy of the issue should contact: editors@innovationsjournal.net.